As Parliament begins its penultimate session before the 2015 General Election,
it is worth asking: what does yesterday's Queen's Speech mean for education?

Amongst policy speeches the Queen’s Speech is unique. It is concise, wide-ranging, and packed with ideas. At no other time in the political calendar will so little song and dance be made about so many policies affecting the daily lives of millions across the country.

Education was one of the first topics to be addressed in the speech. With customary brevity and modest language, radical changes – and no doubt a great deal of ensuing controversy – have been concealed. The section on education ran as follows:

To make sure that every child has the best start in life, regardless of background, further measures will be taken to improve the quality of education for young people.

Plans will be developed to help working parents with childcare, increasing its availability and helping with its cost.

My government will also take forward plans for a new national curriculum, a world-class exam system and greater flexibility in pay for teachers.

My government will also take steps to ensure that it becomes typical for those leaving school to start a traineeship or an apprenticeship, or to go to university.

Because many of these aspirations are well under way, the ambitions set out in the Queen's Speech may not get much attention in the media analysis. Yet this does not make them any less radical. It seems that, with the government determined to press on with school reform, we’ll be hearing a lot more about education in the coming months.

Education has proven one of the most controversial areas of public policy pursued by the government, partly because of the ambition of the reform agenda, but also because of the ever-strident teaching unions. The opportunity to quietly drop the fight on any one of the fronts that has so provoked the unions has now been passed by.

Curriculum changes, exam reforms and performance-related pay were all included as the Queen said her government would "take forward plans for a new curriculum", "greater flexibility in pay" and a "world-class exam system". With the consultations on the new curriculum now finished, we await the final detail of the government's proposals, just as A-level and GCSE reform remains very much on the cards.

Predictably the NUT were quick to issue a press release in which the General Secretary, Christine Blower, attacked all these changes, also taking the opportunity to once again make clear her dislike of Michael Gove. As we get closer to the teaching unions' threatened strike in resistance to reforms, the rather pointed mention of all three ire-invoking moves will do nothing to calm their fiery rhetoric.

And by including education so prominently at such a critical moment the government has signalled its intention to press ahead with education reforms right up to the election. Given the amount of controversy this is bound to cause, this shows just how determined the government is to see its programme of reforms through.

There will be no illusions about the scale of the challenge that getting through these reforms, particularly on the curriculum and performance-related pay, will pose. They wouldn’t risk the fight if they weren’t serious.

As the unions gear up for a stand-off with the government this summer they have been sent a clear message – the government’s resolve hasn’t waned. There is no intention to change course, nor to make large concessions.

Though education won’t be making the headlines in the immediate aftermath of this speech, we can be sure that we’ll be hearing a lot more about what these changes will mean in reality over the coming months.

Chris Skidmore is MP for Kingswood, a member of the Education Select Committee and sometime Tudor historian. He writes a weekly blog for Telegraph Education on life inside the Education Select Committee.